Top 10 Hallucinations In Video Games

Drugs are bad, mmkay? They are just as likely to cause hallucinations as they are to fix your bad blood pressure, if my parents were to be believed. But, unlike their physical counterparts, video game drugs rarely have a debilitating side effect or addicting factor to worry about. Well, my Capitol Wasteland wanderer had a pretty bad jet problem, but so what? Life in the wasteland is hard; you need something to take the edge off. However, sometimes video game drugs do the exact opposite. Not all of these are drug-induced, but here are the Top 10 Hallucinatory Sequences that had us freaking out…man.

*This article contains spoilers for much of the following games. Read at your own peril*

10. Far Cry 3: While Far Cry 3 is a great game, it has, at best, an unlikely narrative. When party boy Jason Brody and his friends get captured on a slaver-filled island, Jason takes it upon himself to become the islands greatest native (!?) warrior and reclaim his friends, and the independence of the island from a tyrannical drug lord just, you know, while he’s at it. Along the way, he meets his crazy adversary Vaas’s sister Cetra. To prepare Jason for the trials ahead, at one point Cetra has him drink a hallucinogenic potion to “bring out his inner warrior”. What he gets is a trippy walk down freak-out lane, complete with visions of his girlfriend and family, tormentor Vaas and a Sentinel-sized version of what looks like a cross between Cetra and Medusa. The bets part comes when you find out what Jason was actually doing while he was having his trip. Let’s just say his visions weren’t the only thing getting freaky.

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9. God of War: The God of War games don’t exactly go out of their way to portray Kratos’s softer side, but there are always two scenes that come to my mind when people say he is completely devoid of personality. One is the scene in Chains of Olympus where a distraught Kratos is forced to leave his daughter behind in the Elysium Fields. The other is when, in the original God of War, Kratos gets trapped in an illusion by Ares where he must defend the shades of his former family against murderous clones of himself. Nobody is handing Kratos an Emmy anytime soon for his acting, but that one scene did more to convey who he really is than any number of bloody combos could have done.

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8. Mass Effect 3: If there has been one constant in the Mass Effect universe, it’s that Commander Shepard is in charge. He never wavers; always doing what’s best for him and his team (even if he’s being kind of an ass about it sometimes). That’s why it was so shocking to see his mental breakdown firsthand in Mass Effect 3. Maybe it is the weight of the universe finally weighing down those strong shoulders, or perhaps the Reaper indoctrination is subtly working on him. Whatever the cause, the end result is undeniable. After witnessing a child get gunned down in the attack on Earth, Shepard is haunted by repeated visions of trying to rescue the kid, only to see him inevitably burn. Watching the previously impenetrable wall of Shepard’s psyche get broken down is one of the more powerful impressions of an already captivating story.

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7. Spec Ops: The Line: What could have turned out to be just another mindless military shooter instead became one of the premiere psychological thrillers on the market. Echoing themes seen in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and the film Apocalypse Now, The Line tells the story of Captain Martin Walker, who is sent into Dubai in search of a rouge soldier by the name of Konrad. However, it soon becomes apparent that things aren’t what they seem. As Martin’s small team begins to question his judgement and sanity as he is put through a ringer of sadistic trials by Konrad, the player can see his mental state deteriorate palpably. The kicker comes at the end though, when it is revealed that Konrad was dead before the game even began; he was just a product of Martin’s brain trying to cope with the tragedy of war. No matter how you play it out, the final scenes of The Line are guarenteed to stay with you long after your time with the title is up.

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6. Shadows of the Damned: Picking one sequence out of this game for this list was hard, because Suda51’s underrated gem Shadows of the Damned is basically one big hallucinogenic trip. The delirious imagery used throughout the game is mindbogglingly weird, but one sequence in particular stands out from the rest. While trying to save his girlfriend Paula from the clutches of Hell, protagonist Garcia Hotspur gets dragged into an illusion where his precious Paula is trying her best to seduce our hero into stopping his quest, because she is quite happy being a demon mistress in Hell, thank you very much. One slightly weird thing about the whole encounter? Paula is about ten stories high. At one point you even have to climb her, ahem, mountains, to continue on your way. Some guys get all the great hallucinations.

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5. Uncharted 3: For anybody who has played through Uncharted, it’s hard not to develop a certain affinity for protagonist Nathan Drake. His roguish yet endearing personality makes you want to root for him, but his occasional arrogance means that, sometimes, you wouldn’t mind seeing him knocked down a peg or two. Players get to experience that happen firsthand in Uncharted 3. Twice during the course of the game, Drake is drugged via dart, which has some rather interesting side effects. Another time, he drinks out of a fountain which, as it turns out, is loaded with hallucinogens from an ancient brass vessel. Yet again, Drake hallucinates while wandering aimlessly through the desert. At this point, I’m not sure we can trust anything Drake does or says. His ex-wife would probably agree.

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4. Dead Space 2: Dead Space protagonist Isaac Clarke has had a pretty tough life, as far as video game characters go. In the first game, he gets stranded on an alien-infested ship, has to get it up-and-running pretty much by himself, and deal with his imagined dead ex-girlfriend playing mind games the whole time. Finally, he finds the ancient “Marker” that is causing all the problems, and, oh yeah, it just so happens to twist the mind of whoever gets in proximity to it. Predictably, the beginning of Dead Space 2 shows poor Isaac getting interrogated and suffering crazy hallucinations, until finally he sees his captor turn into an alien in front of eyes. Oh wait….that part actually happens. Man it sucks to be Isaac.

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3. Metal Gear Solid 3: As everybody knows, the Metal Gear Solid mythos is basically one big jumbled pile of nonsense, retcons and the occasional plot twist that you can actually understand. Given the series penchant for dramatic and prolonged storytelling, they can be forgiven for making the occasional slip. One scene they didn’t mess up was when Snake gets transported to a spiritual realm by a soldier codenamed The Sorrow. Telling Snake that he must “feel the sorrow of those whose lives he had ended”, he forces Snake to walk through a river populated by the souls of those he had killed throughout the game. He means that literally; for every person you killed, there is another soul in the river. Trekking down that path is haunting, and the only way to end the nightmare was to kill yourself and take a revive pill. Savvy gamers learned that, although the iconic SNAKE IS DEAD screen popped up if you made it to the end, you could still open your inventory and save yourself, netting The Sorrows camo in the process.

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2. Batman: Arkham Asylum: Batman is known for his stoic demeanor in the face of danger and unwavering will, but certain events in Arkham Asylum put both of those attributes to the test. While traversing the asylum, Batman enters the morgue and begins investigating. Opening one of the body bags, he finds an unexpected surprise: the Scarecrow and his fear venom. After that, things get a bit…weird. First he gets trapped in the morgue, with each door leading him back to the same room. He then is forced to stagger down a hallway while his parents taunt him about their deaths, telling him that it was his fault. The clincher comes at the end, though, when Scarecrow morphs into a giant version of himself and tries to kill Batman with fear…and giant clawed hands. Don’t forget about the giant hands, they’re kind of important.

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1. Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem: I wouldn’t even know where to start picking one hallucination from this game for the list, but that’s okay, the whole game will suffice. Throughout this underrated cult classic, the player must manage a sanity meter, which goes up and down through various player actions, usually involving the numerous monsters throughout the game. If your sanity starts to dip too low, all sorts of creepy things can happen: the walls can begin to tilt and bleed, your volume can randomly go down (complete with on-screen volume bar), statues and paintings will follow you with their eyes, armies of fake monsters will invade your screen only yo disappear when you touch them and so much more. My favorite though is when the game breaks the fourth wall and falsely informs you that your save files have been corrupted. When an in-game freakout can lead to an actual freakout, you are doing something right. That’s why Eternal Darkness nabs the top spot.

Author

A frequent Top 10 list writer and uber SNES fan, Blake can still to this day be found playing Final Fantasy VI on occasion, even though it is probably bad for his health at this point (we’re not sure he knows there are actually other games out there). When not writing, editing or gaming, Blake enjoys bothering people with his guitar, drinking more than is healthy and talking about this totally crazy weather. Blake is also very involved in the Game Informer community, and has a sick Minecraft world he would love to show you.